A need arose for a stationary equipment mount to be designed and located atop a vehicle which was designed for traversing rough terrain and in proximity to blast or other hostile environments where a user will require rapid access to an equipment item such as a projectile firing system. In particular, a need existed for an improved equipment mount which was usable on a vehicle or turret system which included a hatch for a user to access the environment outside the vehicle or turret where the equipment item was located for ready access and use. A ruggedized equipment mounting system which positioned the user's equipment item in such a way that it maintained coupling with the equipment item in an orientation which was quickly accessible and usable for the user and was able to function on a vehicle with a stiff vehicle suspension system and traversal over various terrains including extremely rough terrain. Moreover, this mounting system was designed to operate on vehicles or structures which were required to maintain pressure or watertight integrity such as amphibious vehicles or pressurized vehicles.
Existing systems were unable to provide a desired mounting capability thus were susceptible to allowing equipment items to be dislodged and possibly falling off the vehicle. When a mounting failure occurred, a user was obliged to get down from the vehicle to retrieve the equipment item. During the retrieval process, the user was exposed to a dangerous situation where they are vulnerable to a hostile environment.
A number of design and prototyping efforts were conducted with a number of hardware designs attempted for use with unsatisfactory results. Testing and design efforts included using equipment replicas with a variety of potential design efforts to ascertain usability to address the need and problems giving rise to this invention. A variety of problems were encountered in attempting to create a space constrained mounting footprint which positioned the equipment item in a position which was quickly accessible to a user as well as capable of avoiding a variety of structural failures in environments where the mounting system would operate.
Accordingly, a new mounting system which was usable under the above described conditions was needed as such a capability did not exist.